Page 65 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 29
P. 65
Art & Culture
grass-thatched kitchen, watching a hen in
the corner lay on three eggs. It hatched
one chick, leaving the other two to
struggle in the eggshells. I observed other Lock Up-
chicks so sympathetically as they were
struggling to come out of the eggshell.
Oh, I decided to help the chicks come Down of
out of the eggshell. I picked up a needle
and a pair of scissors, then successfully 2020
removed the chicks with no harm, like
neurosurgeon Ben Carson operating the
brain. The day and week passed; the By: Wanyama Ogutu
chicks became weaker and weaker, and, Nairobi, Kenya
eventually, they died. It happens when a
man finds an easy way out of life amid
devastation.
ing or signaling. The young boda boda rider in a
T-shirt written “Asolar Wa Ruto” looked back and
The casket was not there during the fu-
neral of my friend’s third ‘wife. She had raised his middle finger in disgust. At that moment,
been buried the day after she died of the everyone was running up and down in fear of city
COVID-19 pandemic. My friend would ‘askaris’ that would arrest them. The askaris were
occasionally stand up to the mourners enforcing the order from above on the COVID-19
and boast that he was better off. He was curfew. I had carried a red-black cock on my left-
burying his third wife, while I was lan- hand side that kept on making cock-a-doodle-do
guishing in poverty in the city’s slums. noises, a bag of maize on my shoulder, and dried,
He used the analogy of a cock without a smelly Mbuta fish in my right hand. Still, the humil-
spur foot to describe my personality in iation sank so deeply that I dropped on my mattress
public. Everyone burst into laughter, at like a jackfruit falling from a tree. “Why would
the top of their voices, while looking at that lunatic widower insult me in public?” I slept,
me. A week later, I arrived in Kayole, full thoughts jumping through my head. I dreamt wres-
of humiliation and bitterness. I remember tling the lunatic to death like two cocks fighting.
the loud laugh from my bald uncle, Che-
bukati, who had not wanted me to finish The devastating COVID-19 radio slogans “Kaa
class eight. Lately, he felt so bitter when Nyumbani Angamiza Korona,” “Korona iko kwa
I graduated with a diploma in house help. Wazee na kwa Vijana,” ”Hata Watoto Hawashaz-
As I walked toward my house, the ‘boda wi,” and “Jikinge na Korona” (“Stay at home.”;
boda’ almost knocked me down when he “COVID-19 kills both the young and the old; chil-
speedily crossed the road without look- dren are not safe too.”) echoed through the central
water point in our rental block far away. I gossiped
ISSUE 29 | JULY 2024 65
